Speeches by Sewards.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. Controlling our borders is a basic function of the state. The Government inherited open borders and are now undertaking the serious work required to fix them, so I welcome the Minister’s efforts. However, I think there are some tweaks we could make. I have spo…”

“I proudly declare that I will be visiting the Falkland Islands as a guest of their Government next month. What can the UK Government do to alleviate EU tariffs of between 6% and 18% on their fishing exports, so that the Falklands Government have more money to spend on health, education and their treasured environment?”

“Even if we accept that the national security concerns about this new embassy have been mitigated, as evidenced by the letters from the security agencies today, and even if we accept that consolidating the seven properties that China owns into one gives us a security advantage, that is still cold comfort to the Hongkong…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I love watching fireworks, whether it is at East Ardsley cricket club, Morley rugby club for bonfire night or at the Gildersome and Drighlington Christmas lights switch-on events. They are spectacular, certainly when part of an organised display. My son Arthur…”

“Just before I bring Daniel in, could you elaborate on those workload issues? How do we solve that?”

“The evidence you have given today of mentors certainly lines up with the anecdotal experience I have of mentors because it certainly helped me. Just as an aside, then, before we move on to the next question, we have also heard evidence that some teachers really like it when schools say that their children can attend th…”

“Sticking with the theme of retention and to plug the holes in the bucket that Daniel was talking about earlier, one reason that I stayed in teaching for eight and a half years is that I had excellent training right at the start from Teach First, the mentors in school and the NQT programme as it was known then. My quest…”

“Thank you, especially for the statistics. Anyone else?”

“Turning back to behaviour, which we talked about earlier. Again, when I was a teacher—head of maths—I did not lose a single maths teacher: a record I am very proud of to this day. I was the first person to leave my school and my department, and that was to do this job. One reason was that when I trained my staff, I was…”

“I am conscious that we are 10 minutes over. Daniel, can you just finish on this point?”

“The January 2024 review of the Early Career Framework and Initial Teacher Training highlighted several concerns including, but not limited to, unnecessary repetition, the fact that it was not subject-specific enough, that there was excessive rigidity, there was insufficient focus on SEND, and, as we heard in the last p…”

“Very briefly, a young woman from my constituency described the scenario that the hon. Gentleman talks about. She is insured and wears hi-vis clothes, but now faces regular intimidation and abuse, so she has to go out with a camera. Despite that, she still faces those problems. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Gov…”

“I genuinely welcome the content of the Home Secretary’s statement and her answers to other Members. It is clear that the west midlands chief constable’s position is no longer tenable, but I accept the Home Secretary’s explanation of why she cannot remove him today and I am pleased that she will reintroduce that power i…”

“As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire, I absolutely welcome the news that phase 1 of the Northern Powerhouse Rail project prioritises Yorkshire. It will generate growth and opportunities for people in my region, and it is a development for which members of the APPG, on bo…”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“During the pandemic we obviously saw widespread grade inflation, as teachers awarded grades. I was one of those teachers; I was trying to make sure I did it in line with expectations. We know that the inquiry into covid-19 has taken evidence from a range of witnesses about these arrangements into exams. Once that modul…”

“My constituent, Chloe Cheung, has to live with the fact that she has a £100,000 bounty placed on her head under the national security law in Hong Kong. She walks around every day knowing that anyone here could claim that bounty by taking her to the Chinese embassy and handing her over to the authorities. Now she is wor…”

“The people of Iran are courageously fighting for their freedom against an oppressive regime, and we all stand with them. The brutal response from Tehran highlights the need to take action against the IRGC. I know it has been addressed multiple times during this session, but when do the Government plan to bring forward …”

“If somebody was interested, where might they find these detailed scenario planning documents?”

“Will they have to do exams in a future pandemic?”